Journal 4
by My.Freedom.My.Sorrow.Jaylen
Summary: I'm keeping this journal and another now. This Im writing in, however, is journal 4. Journal 4 will be different. Humans are a social species. I will not do well out here for long alone, my only conversations in the dreamscape with likes of Cipher. The best I can do is try to carry out one side interaction, and what better have I proven at then writing journals?
1. Prologue

**Journal 4**

…

 _Entry: Journal #4_

 _It's the 50_ _th_ _day- by this place's standards; I have finalized my thoughts that this planet's cycles are approximately 6 hours longer in length. It's been 1500 hours rounded; back home, that would have been 62 days._

 _50_ _th_ _seems shorter, and I want to be stranded as shortly as possible. So we'll go with that._

 _-I._ I _will go with that. Sometimes I forget I'm alone._

 _This place is so full of solitude. I have seen no signs of life outside of… animals… non terrestrial animals. None I'd find back home, nowhere on earth, except maybe gravity falls; but I'm not there. So it's my belief and hypothesis that I am indeed beyond earth, if I truly am in not only another dimension, and perhaps any combination or singularity of the two._

 _The only other life sans these animals, and these strange plants, seems to be Bill. Despite passing through the portal, I do not seem to be in his dimension, much to his anger. It appears that while my device… took me somewhere, it had failed to take me to the place I had been trying in bad faith to reach._

 _Should I be glad the portal won't help him and his plans? Or should I be angry I failed to achieve what was supposed to be my life's work? Well, I'm both._

 _I'm keeping this journal and another now. Journal 5, will be my studies. There seem to be a lot of plants and animals, and it'd be best to study them. I have many notes already; trying to figure out what is edible and what could be deadly. This I am writing in, however, is journal 4._

 _Journal 4 will be different._

 _I have never kept a 'diary' form of journal. But I have read my peers' in collage who were in the studies of Psychology's works, and I can't ignore a truth; As… unsocial as I am considered, Humans are a social species. I will not do well out here for long alone, my only conversations being in the dreamscape with the likes of Cipher. The best I can do is try to carry out one sided interaction, and what better have I proven at then writing journals?_

 _Onward, to write what I have been up to these last 15 thousand hours._

 _While there seems to be no sign of intelligent life in this place I have been deposited, portal nowhere in sight when I woke- does that mean Stanley closed it to lock me in? Did it break? I'd rather it broken, at least then it wouldn't ever be opened again; that'd keep home much safer for Stanley and the whole planet at that. While there are no signs of those intelligent creatures or people, I have discovered evidence that there were, perhaps still are somewhere on this planet. I doubt they are human, from what I have found consisting of a skeletal body; I buried it at the top of the cliff if only because moving it seemed disrespectful and god only knows the last thing I need right now is more demons after me, but I didn't want to live with a skeleton lying on the floor of the place I had found._

 _I discovered a dug in cave at the cliff, 6 miles up a river and 2 miles further north is the place I initially woke. The cave is cemented on the inside; a sort of dome. The whole thing's walls and roof are growing with mass amounts of a sort of iridescent moss- I have my concerns if its radioactive or dangerous, but it is certainly safer in here then outside. The rain on this planet seems highly acidic, burning to my skin though seemingly harmless to other life here. Also, after trying to sleep in one of the gargantuan trees (I will call them trees, but they are more like… coral, with bushes of 'leaves' quite like dandelions, though much harder.) to try and avoid the large carnivorous, this place seems much safer than a chance encounter with something looking for a snack in the night while asleep._

 _The door locks with three latches, the light from the moss is about as strong as a sunset (bright enough to read, for example, but soft and a pale green that doesn't keep one awake while trying to sleep). There's a sort of soft bean bag like object about the size of a king bed with an old blanket that really needed a wash in the water of the river; its much better for sleeping than the 'trees', if I do say. There's evidence this place would have once had electricity, too, though not anymore; a panel with some wiring that was perhaps akin to a breaker, and a large… screen? Perhaps a TV or Computer or something of the sort. I have plans to try and dismantle it and see if I can make something useful, but there is no power source out here. I'm contemplating trying to find a way to make either a windmill, or even a magnet-based generator… There is also a desk with an oil lamp- sadly out of oil- and what looks to be many books on a couple bookshelves; most of which hand-written and others looking very wordy judging from thickness and the size of the characters, but I can't seem to find any way to read this 'alien' writing. Better yet, I found clean notebooks. Two of which became Journal 4 and 5. Thankfully while there were a lot of things in that desk I can't seem to find a use for, there appeared to be plenty of pens as close to the ones of earth that I could use it._

 _After living here for 17 of this planets days, I found a compartment hatch toward the back. It once opened electronically, but after trying for a while to pry it open, I have been rewarded. Weapons. A sort of Plasma gun or Laser gun that I decided to leave in there; I imagine something like that would need charging, best not use it unless I need it. But also, a much easier weapon—an electrical pair of gloves that I find to be made of solar chargeable absorbers within the cloth. The sun here, double the size than earth's, is finally useful for something other than making it hot as the Sahara. There was also a long spear, much more primitive and wooden with a metal sharp tip at the end, and a few smaller throwing knives. I'm not very good with the latter in the least, but they are useful to at least cut things. There were other things in there, but none I have yet to figure out or understand how to use._

 _I did start carrying the plasma gun in case of emergency recently, after I suppose a night with bill really got under my skin, and the gloves may not charge enough energy to power anything but themselves, but they are still useful; I can shock the water of the river, and their electricity is strong enough that fish near enough rise to the surface, stunned or dead. I'm practicing with the spear, but not much luck yet._

… _I don't have much else to write in here. The days are long and slow, this place is dangerous, Bill is insufferable and without him on the every few nights that he doesn't show up to torment me in the dreamscape, I wake with nightmares._

 _That's all for now, I guess. I'm scared, but that's nothing new._

 _I can survive this; I'm_ supposed _to be a_ genius _after all, right?_

…

With a deep breath as Ford quietly read over that last line, once, twice, a third time, he leaned back against the sloping wall of the dome behind him. He didn't have any more words to write, but there felt like there were, and it was irritating. He normally wrote science, but fact didn't fill the paper as much as he wanted it to this time. Diaries were supposed to be personal, but he wasn't good with that.

6-fingered hands flexed over paper, and after a second, eyes opened again. Ford read the line over again, once more, then twice more, and with pen in hand, he drew a sharp, neat, straight line.

He folded the cover back over the first page again, and climbed down from his crossed-legged seat on top of the desk; no chairs in this odd room. He sunk into the strange bed and curled into the blanket tight against the cold air, untouched by sunlight which had vanished from the sky hours ago.

He descended into disturbed sleep at the mercy of his triangular tormentor a while later.

 _That's all for now, I guess. I'm scared, but that's nothing new._

 _I can survive this;_ _I'm_ supposed _to be a_ genius _after all, right?_


	2. Hopeless

**Journal 4**

…

 _Entry: hopeless_

 _I have so few materials to work with and so much I need to do. Electricity planning, getting food (my original fishing plan seems to have scattered fish from the area), trying and failing to sleep and only wasting time by staring up at nothing but glowing moss, mind crowding with things that are useless in my situation like Stanley and the portal and regrets I can't help, concerns that it's getting even hotter outside when I was sure it was already reaching the 100F degree mark daily._

 _Could this place be entering a hotter season? Will it get too hot for me to survive out here? I don't know if there's anything else edible for me out here, even the fish looked odd and furry. It's been 75 days- approximately 2250 hours, I'm near 100 earth days, not even a third of the year, and I'm already panicking? That's infuriating!_

 _I've been too busy to write in this for the past 25 days, though I told myself back then I'd try to write in this journal every week at least. The only reason I'm doing it now, is because to make everything worse, it seems this place gets massive sandstorms. So I'm stuck inside the dome until- however long it takes a sand storm to pass. I'd try to get sleep- I am so, so tired- but like I said, it's useless. Thoughts of bill make it hard to sleep._

 _I can't believe this, now this pen isn't even working. So much for writing more often, eh?_

…

With an annoyed sigh, Stanford eventually gave up after having to go over and over the question mark 10 times. He threw the pen toward the mess of parts from dissecting the monitor-screen device. Maybe the stupid alien-weird-pen-thing'd be useful some other time; though he more wanted to just throw it then he cared what he did with it later.

More carefully, he closed the notebook- sighing again as he caught a glimpse of the crossed words from many days ago, averting his gaze up to the top of the dome as he set the notebook down with the other. Journal 5 was quite well endowed with information on the animals and plants, Ford reminded himself; the pen dying out made sense with how much he'd written in the other one.

That's right, Ford. When you think about it, it makes sense.

You have to think.

If you just think a little harder, concentrate on your intellect, you'll figure it out.

And so, back to the drawing board.

He moved from sitting on the desk back to the ground and on two feet, which had become habit to sit there when he was writing in the other journal as well as journal 4, and Ford made his way to the sprawl of vaguely sorted parts. He didn't have much of a clue what the thing had been before, not built like any computer he'd ever seen, for sure, but he recognized some of these parts, even if they were _different_. Initially he'd tried to just fix the thing. Now that he grasped that he didn't even know if it'd help him when fixed, he'd directed his thoughts to using parts of it instead. After a while, his best option turned to making a Radio.

If there was any intelligence left on this planet, if he could get a powerful radio signal up, it was just low tech enough that maybe there was someone else out here that'd invented a radio broadcaster and receiver, and he'd get help. Or… something. Something.

It was a long shot.

A very, very long one.

Is there life here to receive it? Could he build something to send the signal? Could he make something to power it? Could whoever received it, if anyone did, be able to help him? even understand him? For all he knew, whatever found his signal might be weird enough and dangerous enough to try and eat him or something.

If Bill was any indicator, Stanford Pines had very bad luck with creatures he met from other dimensions.

He sat amongst the bits and parts, and pushed away the thoughts. He could fry to death, starve to death, poison himself to death, or run himself into the ground and die of either exhaustion or insanity. What's one more possible death like something trying to eat him? At least he could try and shoot the alien with the laser gun or something; there wasn't much he could do about the heat or the disappearance of the only good source of food or the dream demon in his head. Those were things he couldn't fight. An alien, please, bring it on.

The day came and went, and here was no indicator how long Ford had worked as when he glanced outside to check the position of either the sun or the two moons for approximate time, he'd only felt the sting of the lashing sandy wind and seen nothing. So, trapped in a dank underground igloo with no idea how long he's been down here was making just a little, _little_ bit claustrophobic.

Absolutely _fantastic_.

Why did for always get the short end of the stick anyway?

He relented to trying to sleep again; curled up with both the blanket, and kept his trench coat on to separate himself from the cold cavernous air as he set his glasses off on the floor beside the mushy bean baggy bed. He had to of stared up at glowing moss with vision blurred eyes for at least an hour before exhaustion finally claimed him.

bill didn't show up that night, but the sleep was as restless at it had been for the last few months, even before he'd called Stanley up to help him hide the journals. Nightmares full of regret, like Fiddleford, like Stan, like missing out on his college, like bill. Bill entered his nightmare, even when the real one wasn't actually there, and it was only the vision his brain created as his greatest fear.

When he woke, it was with a startled shout and drenched in buckets of sweat, breathing heavy.

Feeling just as tired as when he had first lain down, but now starving all the more, Ford slid out of the cocoon he'd built himself in the night with the blanket. He felt a lot older than a man in his late 20s, pushing 30. There was a sickening succession of pops in his back and an ache in his bones, and his eyes barely opened at first, weak ad probably dark with insomnia against the pale of his sickly skin; the dirty clothes probably, most likely, didn't help his appearance. He was suddenly hit by a… none too pleasant fragrance, too.

He'd never been a real filthy guy, and the fact that he still had that tie, which he'd unnecessarily washed at some point and folded up at his desk, was the proof. Though Ford maybe missed a shower for a day, even two, when caught up in work, but He didn't necessarily like this layer of grunge on him. Maybe if it wasn't too late in the day, and the sand storm was gone… he'd commit a little time to the task of washing his clothes and himself. Maybe he'd feel less like trash and like less of a 80-something year old.

His gaze shifted to the pile of parts and the sloppy organization of pieces across the floor as he replaced his glasses on his face, a few scatters of papers scribbled with possible diagrams and ideas and notes about the object he was in the process of building.

Should he waste time with that, going to take a bath? Who would care how clean his clothes looked, anyway?

His stomach growled in protest; the river offered a chance of the strange fish, at least. And he was hungry. Very hungry. His gut reminded him again with a louder gurgle and, this time, a sharp hunger pan that partially made him flinch.

Priorities, ford. Food, work on machine, bathe. That's the order here.

With a tired noise he went to get the gloves, and the spear, before tentively venturing toward the door, wearier of opening it at the reminder of how vicious the storm had been before, beyond the sound proofed walls of the dome.

When he cracked it ever slightly, and no hot sand burst in on a wave of wind, he opened the door further, squinting around at the bleeding red-green sky that, here on this planet, signaled the sun was rising. Earlier than he'd expected. Not unwanted, though. It meant more time before he had to retreat from the sun; maybe the thought of that bath at the river wasn't too out of line.

He huffed at himself, wondering when he'd become such a neat freak- before reminding himself that wanting to get rid of a layer of dirt and sweat the thickness of your skin wasn't really _neat freak_ and more so just _basic hygiene_.

Thoughts and memories of things like hand soap, germ-x and toothpaste were suddenly very fond thoughts. He really missed shampoo, too.

He chanced a glance down at one hand as he walked for the river, looking over his palm and all six digits. The grit under his nails was gross, there was so much dirt caked into the sleeve of his once nice white shirt and the tan trench coat and there was so much dirt in between his fingers the areas were black.

 _Gross_.

He even physically cringed.

Neat freak or not, who knew what weird bacteria were growing on him right now, breeding in those dark patches of grime. Ick.

He finally made it to the water and sighed. He went down stream a bit, so as not to scare any fish that, if he was lucky, may be there to at least get _some_ of the ick off his hands, before walking back and gloving himself.

A brief flash of sparks that lit up the water, spreading like lightning down under as ford touched the surface made his stomach growl again, associating that light with food, and he scanned the top hopefully, remembering when the first flash had once brought about 8 fish as fondly as he did toothpaste.

A lucky break; one strange, neon fish with an ugly hot pink color to it's fur and beady white pupils on black eyes floated up, stunned.

Ford rushed it without a thought as he stripped off the gloves and dropped them on the smooth round pebbles of the water bank, returning with 'fish' in hand. Small knife from the weapon closet handy, he killed it quickly.

It was a fairly big one, too. It wouldn't counteract the last 45 hours of no food, not completely, but it was a _hell_ of a lot better than nothing.

Ford took a few minutes to spark up a fire and clean and skewer his electrified catch. The anomalous man took a minute to set it up to cook like he'd done many times now on the same patch of charred earth as many timed before- and then looked down at his own grubby, dirty hands again.

Was it worth it? I mean, he'd get back into dirty clothes if he bothered to try and wash. And if he tried to wash the clothes, he'd have to put them on soaking wet.

Whatever. Why not? A while in a wet shirt and pants wasn't going to kill him.

He descended into the water, fish still rigged on a spit to cook and clothes still on. He was sitting down again in the shallower waters, pulling off the cloak of a coat to try and give it a wash- when it hit him.

Or, clamped down on him.

A short curse and a flail of a hand later, and the genius was beaming a bit too wide for a man who'd just been clamped by a crab-ish creature.

That is, because now ford was aware the water was crawling with them, and they looked even more like actual crabs then the fish did fish.

He wasn't just a dirty man who'd been clamped by a crab-ish creature; he was a dirty man taking his first bath in nearly 3 months whom had just found another source of food.


	3. A Chance

**Journal 4**

…

 _Entry: A Chance_

 _I have finally taken the time to do more exploration of my surroundings, to the proving of some of my theories. It's been 100 days here, rounded 3000 hours, some 125 earth days; I feel like I have failed a crucial aspect to have waited so long, so many days, to actually explore the area I'm in. the most I'd done prior included wandering south and following the river to the dome; since then I hadn't done much, and stuck to the dome, the cliff where I'm working on the radio(after the first dust storm, I have begun using tarps to cover my project from damage when not at work; they also seem resistant to the acidic mist and rain but so does all the technology here that I'm harvesting and anything else on this planet sans myself, so that wasn't ever much of a concern.), and the river._

 _I moved south, across the river, out of curiosity when I discovered a rather old, metal bridge of mostly rust and what I think to be gold, and a path lines with silver rocks and what looks like precious gems. I haven't followed the path of the bridge to the north, but southward, I proved my early theory that there was once life, but not anymore. At least, not this area of the planet, perhaps; what I found was a massive, sprawling city of finer metals such as gold or silver, all rusted and deserted as far as I've seen._

 _To think, that this city had been under my nose the whole time! Why didn't I explore out sooner?_

 _The walk takes about an hour, but I managed to find an old cart like wheel barrow to haul back supplies from the city, abandoned at the side of the road. There is a lot more technology- very little of which I can figure out how it had once been used…- but whose parts I can use for working on the radio. That's my best chance, this is perfect. Maybe I can get it working soon, and then I can work on the wave amplifier to make sure the waves can span farther while I wait for the initial chance of response from the first broadcast… all in all, when I get back to the dome, I should have everything I need. I'll have the first radio send off ready before morning, given no sand storms or inclement weather._

 _I think I'm practically vibrating with excitement._

 _Aside from the technology, I've rooted around in search of anything else. I've found some blankets and some more pens and some other things like those tarps I mentioned, and a lot of weird things I don't quite see uses for that whomever lived here must have used, and this place seems void of food. It also seems that it's been pillaged before; signs of these 'alien's' equivalent of vandalism, parts of these gold buildings cut and removed cleanly, places that appear to have been studded with precious stones like the ones lining the path that glow suspitiously in the sunset having been pried free and taken. I managed to find another strange plasma gun in a building with a few cells- perhaps a prison or police station at some point._

 _I should start heading back. I've got an hour's walk, I still need to gather a few of the shelled creatures to eat tonight when I get back, and then, I need to work on that radio._

 _Tonight is my chance. I'm going to get out of here, I know it._

…

With a flick of his wrist for the final punctuation, he giddily snapped the book closed, before placing the 4th of his notebooks on top of the pile in his barrel. Alongside his 5th which he had brought with him (taking many notes on the city, the strange glowing gems, the things he found, all that), he had found many notebooks as well as many pens in an office building, which had reached high than most earth skyscrapers; he had found a _lot_ of pens and notebooks. Which was good; number 5 was getting very full, since it had been a pretty thin book to begin with.

He figured when he got off this planet and home, he'd take all these notes from 5 and the soon to be journal 6 and condense them into actual books like 1, 2, and 3. Maybe he'd make an actual journal for number 4, too?

A nagging little voice muttered, 'if you ever leave; and who says you'll ever find your way home, anyway?' but he quickly buried those thoughts by reminding himself it was time to get home to the dome before he got caught in an afternoon sand storm, which happened now and again.

Ford picked up the harness he'd temporarily crafted to the cart with a rope he'd found; the cart was metallic but green, and very light weight; the things in it weighed the most despite the cart's massive size.

Between the harness, and reaching back to grab on to the cart's handles, Stanford started on his way back out of the city, for the temporary place he called home, tugging the heavy weight behind him with a vague thought that 3000 hours ago, he wasn't strong enough to carry all this weight for the hard hours walk in this place's blearing sun.

Even if he was on the malnourished side, all this activity was making him just a bit stronger. What he'd lost in body fat from hunger, he'd gained at least half of back in muscle. And this was good; He'd come to the mental agreement with himself that, though he was a 'genius' and a scientist, he really should have also been exercising back home. People with such weaknesses that they couldn't life something moderately heavy probably shouldn't survive as long as he had, with such little strength or endurance, doing things as dangerously as he tended to. In fact, he wished now that back then he'd done more exercise even more, because even at this point he was already tired by the time the bridge came into view.

This would be a long walk, full of angry self-regret and annoyance with a 100-day ago self, but at least the hope of getting away from this place would make certain Ford didn't give into aching limbs and blistering heat.

…

…

…

Several hours had passed. Ford had come back, pulling the metal cart inside with a bit of a struggle seeing how wide it was in comparison to the door, and had all but collapsed for a few, almost blissful minutes in the coolness of the underground cliff cave.

Then, he'd gotten right back on his feet only a few heartbeats later.

Stanford, as he had written, was practically vibrating with energy at the thought of getting his radio working, and started pulling out his sketched plans and electronics out of the cart, practically ripping them open with his bare hands for more parts to build his device.

He worked and worked as the green day sky turned red with the setting of the sun, before dragging himself, everything he had with him, and clumps of that glowing moss (to light his work as red sky became black) to the work place at the height of the cliff, the closest he could get to the stars of the night, a location best chosen for its chance of reception thanks to height.

He all but threw the tarps off his assembly of machinery assembled from alien bits and parts, and dived in head first- fixing this to that, putting this here, wiring this and circuiting around that.

The battery like object he'd found in what may have once been an automobile back in the city could be empty or dead, he didn't know, but there wouldn't be any way to know, other than to give it a try. The last thing he did was set out the route for the energy to flow, but hesitated to hit the switches and buttons to get it starting.

His hands shook for a moment, and it wasn't from sunless night air or the strong wind. He asked himself why he was hesitating, 12 shaking digits curling into fists against themselves to get them to stop trembling.

A little voice echoed back at his question.

 _Do you think it'll actually work_?

…will it?

 _Are you actually capable of building anything, sixxer?_

…was he?

 _Do you really think_ you _can do something like this?_

…could he?

Doubt.

He had doubts. He couldn't build the _portal_ , could he, even when he'd had help from an all knowing demon? And his whole research in technology had been to construct the portal, most of his life and all of his research had been poured into a device he had failed to actually achieve it's purpose, to open a portal to a single specific realm. And instead it had tossed him to a totally random disserted planet.

If everything he had learned in regards to working with wires and computers and machines had been for _one_ thing, a thing which he'd _failed,_ to even get said portal to lead to the actual place it was _meant_ to—then was he actually capable of building something else _entirely_ then the thing he'd studied for? Was he capable of building anything at all if he couldn't build the one thing he'd actually researched for? Was he capable of doing anything with unknown alien parts from technology he didn't even fully, if at all, understand?

He had doubts.

 _After all, I'm a genius._

 _After all, I failed at the one thing I spent most of my life trying to build._

 _After all, sixxer, you're a failure._

After a few moments of staring at nothing, Ford's fists tightened briefly before opening again, and he went back to the task of turning his radio on.

Lack of confidence aside, echo of a voice beyond his own and more so belonging to fucking magical floating _dorito_ , it was as he had said before: there's no way to know until he'd tried it, and there wasn't anything else he could do but turn it on, and hope from the bottom of his heart that it was transmitting.

On the bright side, it did at least turn on.

With a tired sigh more fitting to a man of the age of 80 rather than 29, Ford sank down to a seat at the edge of the cliff.

That was that, then.

All that energy, and it was a bit… anticlimactic.

All that work and effort into building this… _thing_ , what he hoped was a device sending out morse code clicks for S.O.S. on a radio frequency. He didn't have a receiver, so he had no way to know if it was even working, or if anyone could hear it, or if they could, would they come and in how long? He had no way of alleviating that stupid echo in the back of his head, either.

 _You know its not working right, sixxer._

 _You'll sit here for a hundred years and become just another skeleton on a planet of poison rain and gold._

 _Too bad, brainiac._

He turned his head up; the night too early for the second moon to have risen, and the first was only a white blip a mere third of the size of the one back on earth. And so many, many stars, more than he'd ever seen in his own night sky, no sign of the familiar constellations of those in earth's open black space.

They weren't the night sky, but they were the closest thing to something back on earth. Even the sky during the day glowed green and the sun too big and the clouds a rather unappealing brown-yellow. The 'grass' was white as snow, the trees a pastel blue and hard as rock with puffy white foliage-rocks, and the animals had so many limbs he didn't have a name for even after studying their functions. The cities were made of gold and gems and the fish here tasted sickeningly sweet while the crab like bad wine.

Everything here was wrong and a younger him would have loved to take a vacation to a place like this to study- but a him who was stranded here with his last memories of home being marred with paranoia and the very last of them a fight with his own twin, all he wanted to do was go home and fix them and see the beautiful green and brown of the forest and the the people of gravity falls and the anomalies he'd spoken with and studied before.

The only thing even remotely similar was the night sky, black space filled with twinkling stars. But even now, they were different. So visible from lack of light pollution, out of order of their usual star maps, and just not the same.

He was only watching them, those brilliant stars, for a few minutes- contemplating mapping them in his journals- when it happened.

A loud sound, which he came to understand when he saw the _thing_ coming down hard, was the sound of something breaking into the atmosphere. And shortly after, a strange… yellow-ish… fast moving blur soaring like a flash of light threw the sky.

He watched, in vague awe, as it tried to pull up, save itself, but smacked head long into the trees and was captured in their stony, skyward reaching grasps many feet off the ground with the sounds of a brutal crash.

Stanford slowly stood up, eyes round behind his glasses in shock, as he watched the thing in the trees crack and some of it crumble free, tumbling down with gravity, before an explosive blast threw the ship's fallen parts into sparks and fire that illuminated the whole surrounding area of forest.

Questions, too many questions, too many unanswered open questions. What was that? Was that… _thing_ alive? Was it- a space ship, maybe? It was much, much smaller than the one he'd discovered in gravity falls, but-? Was there someone in it? Was it a coincidence? That- that it'd come to this area? That it'd landed here so soon, only minutes, after he'd turned on his radio? That'd it'd _crashed_? What kind of space ship was it? why had it crashed? Who was in- no, _what_ was in it? were they- was _it_ \- even alive? Was it ever alive? Was it still alive after _that_? How far away is that place it'd landed?

So, so many questions.

But as if he'd known all he needed to for now, he was already moving the second the adrenaline filled his blood. Stanford was already running around toward the east side, to the hill side, of cliff, down to the open space in front of the 90 degree cliff drop that lead into the dome, and raced inside. He grabbed a bucket and the strange, alien-esc first aid kit from the cart that he'd managed from the city ruins, and was running back out as fast as his feet could possibly carry him.

He only stopped at the river, filling his bucket with water as he trudged straight through the water and across, running head long into the trees on the other side.

The sight of the crash was much closer than it'd seemed from the height and angle of the cliff, and it only took 10, 15 minutes to reach it.

Most, over half, of the space age ship was still in the tops of the stone-coral branches; that much of it was fine, though cracked and broken. It was the parts that had torn free of it and tumbled down from the tree that had exploded, including both what seemed to be the engine and the driver's seat. They burned hot and were already spreading fire to the hot-sun dried plant life and foliage.

Using the bucket as sparingly as possible to smother flames with water, Ford found himself running back to the river a second time for a refill to put out them all; he couldn't risk fire. It could spread to the area near the dome, and it could ravish the food supply and push any predators in the area toward his bunker if the fire didn't go there instead; the last thing he wanted was more dangerous predators at a closer radius. Plus, it was best to save as much of this wreckage as possible; it maybe be useful.

Perhaps this thing had been in orbit as a satellite, or remote piloted, or auto piloted, though. Because as far as he could see, the captain's pit was shattered and torn open, but there was no sign of any body amongst the charred, blasted wreckage of it.

He looked up into the mile-tall trees reaching above him. He cringed at the very thought someone may be stuck up there, of having to climb up there and check… and then maybe bringing whoever- whatever- was up there _down_.

I mean, these trees were _massive_ , and tree climbing hadn't really been a talent of this particular robotic and technology studies major's life, certainly not carrying a possible 300 pound alien with him.

He cast his gaze back down, to look around the burned, ashen, and now soggy wreckage- only for his gaze to catch on a brightness of something white in a huddle that reflected moonlight practically like a mirror.

He had dropped the first aid kit at the edge of the crash scene, and the bucket hit the ground as well as he whipped out the mostly unused laser-like fire arm he carried for emergencies.

He trained it pointedly on the breathing, although unsteadily and faintly, white 'alien'.

It was too small to be… _whatever_ that skeleton had been in the dome, or any of the skeletons he'd seen in the golden city. It probably wasn't planet native, then. An alien both to Ford and the planet itself.

He approached slowly, expression set in stone with an anxious, but determined look; ready to come face to face with whatever it could be. Visions flashed through his head at all the anomalous creatures he'd seen in his days; two entirely separate categories' worth, from mythics in gravity falls, to aliens of this planet. He could handle whatever it was, he'd seen his fare share of cryptids and extraterrestrials by now. After all, it was small- well, it was his size, but smaller than a lot of things much more frightening that roamed this planet at night, so he should really get back to the dome soon.

But as he got closer, anxiety melted away, and in the darkness illuminated by moonlight and it's reflective glow off of the white creature, he saw just what it was.

4 limbs; 2 arms, 2 legs. One head, hair, a face. Breathing, bleeding, alive.

Humanoid; _human_.

At least, it _looks_ human…

 _Let's hope it is_.

With that thought in mind, Ford rolled the other person- hopefully as human as it looked, but he couldn't believe himself to trust that it was entirely human just from looks. He had raised a shape shifter from an egg, he had seen creatures that were disguised as humans, he had even seen bill take over human bodies all together- experienced it first hand, in fact.

Eyes could tell lies- although ironically, it was the eyes that gave Bill's possession away- and you could never believe what they saw so easily.

Which is why the first thing he did was retrieve a seat belt from the wreckage before coming back and, cautiously shoving the body off its side and onto its back- he didn't stop to look at it at all, not even pausing long enough to breathe, quickly binding two wrists together tight in front of the body.

He darted back to his first aid kit, ripping it open on his way back, and finally took a minute to look at the 'possible' person, mostly to look for injuries.

Masculine and most likely a male specimen (ford had to pause and remind himself that this wasn't a _specimen_ for one of his books, it was another person, but then also reminded himself it wasn't proven human just yet). Somewhat strange, paleish blue hair pushed back with what may have been hair gel, that somehow survived a space ship crash, was wearing a low cut and loosely hanging blue tank top that was pretty limp from the thin bodies' build, a black leathered vest and a white lab coat that was only half on and off the other arm, black leather pants, and a rather oversized skull belt and a collar-necklace. He didn't have shoes, black and chipping polish on every nail either finger or toe, some gawky punk bracelets, and so much eye liner that Ford was a bit taken aback that a human… _like this_ was somehow in possession of a _spaceship_.

He must have been knocked free from the driver's seat, right through the windshield on the way down near the ground, because the burns were very minimal, just a little redness and a few darker red areas that'd need some attention over bare skin and some streaks on his white coat. His windshield theory was also supported by the fact that while the burns were few, the stranger was bleeding rather thickly from quite a few cuts and gashes all over, few of them very serious; however, there were still shards stuck in many, and there were two very long and very… disturbing shards sticking out of that open view of his sternum and leg, and a few smaller ones in his arm and the side of his head; mostly to the left, obviously the side that had impacted and broken through the glass.

Stanford frowned darkly. As suspicious as he was, he'd rather that if this person was just _a person_ , that they didn't die. Help could make getting out of here easier- even if this _person_ … looked more like a 30-something-year-old stuck in his angsty teenage emo-punk faze who'd have zero intellect than someone who might have a spaceship and thusly some sort of knowledge about possibly building/fixing one to get out of here.

So… He patched him up the best he could to just get him mobile, spending at least an hour wrapping up cuts, pulling out glass, cauterizing bigger wounds, and then… then just dragged him back to the dome before one of those massive nocturnal reptilians attracted to loud noise showed up to search the crash site. He'd finish patching up what's-his-name when they got to the dome.

He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do with this guy, but on the bright side, he was still breathing when they reached the cave, so maybe he'd survive to be of some use.

If he didn't wake up and turn out to be some crazy alien in disguise, maybe.


	4. Impatience

Journal 4

…

 _Entry: Impatience_

 _You know, any person with a PhD in ANYTHING knows something about human anatomy, but that doesn't make me the kind of doctor I kind of wish I was right now, so I could figure out why this…_ guy _isn't awake yet._

 _I know enough to make sure his wounds aren't infected and I keep them clean and change the wrappings, I've made sure to keep a close eye on him, he hasn't developed any fever or gotten very cold, his breathing has gotten better after the smoke inhalation's irritation has gone down, he's healing well…_

 _I mean, he came out of the space ship during the crash- did he get a concussion? Is he in a comma from going to sleep with a concussion? That's what they said could happen to Stanley a lot of times when we were kids. Or maybe he's bleeding internally, he_ is _very pale… you know, I wouldn't mind having majored in biology right about now. Or whatever a doctor majors in._

 _The radio died yesterday, only two days after I turned it on, as the battery went out of juice. I don't have the time between keeping this guy under watch, and everything else, to head back to the city to try and find a new battery yet. To make matters worse even still, the heat is even more intense so I'm not even sure I can make the trip in a day anymore. The sand storms and acid rains are getting heavier, the first of the two having just started up and forced me inside just a few minutes ago. I'm out of parts to work with for right now, too, so all that left is to update this journal and keep an eye on_ _it_

Him _. It's a him. Not an it. Innocent until proven guilty. I.e., Person until proven otherwise._

 _Bill said it might be a good idea to just kill him before he wakes up and turns into something I can't handle. But that's crazy. Despite what that lying monster says, this_ person _is not an_ it _. I see his scars. He's a history and a life and if I tell myself that enough, I'm convinced it's not a monster._

 _I'm_ convinced _, Bill._

 _On a side note, I've been watching him so close I haven't really had the time to go back to the crash site more than twice now; the first, only the next few hours after bringing back 'blue hair', to make sure I hadn't left any other people back there, but there were none. The second, just yesterday, to see if maybe he had anything worth taking in the area on the ground level. Everything on the ground was burned up, and I couldn't stay away from_ _whatever_ _whoever this guy is to try and get up into the tree, not yet. For one, he could probably stop breathing or open a wound and start bleeding out or something in his sleep, or, he might wake up and either freak out and open up a wound like I said, or I don't know, shape shift and/or free himself and run off somewhere._

 _Ah, also, I'm still keeping him tied down to the bed._

 _Call me paranoid._

 _That's nothing new._

 _Whoever he is, I just hope he_

…

And his written words, already growing sloppy from the last few lines up, trailed off as his pen slipped and his lifeless 6 digits trailed down the paper unto the ground, limp.

He'd passed out.

What he hadn't gotten to mentioning before falling asleep- although his writing habit normally had him sitting on the desk, he had fallen asleep leaning on the alien-esc 'bed' cushy… thing that he's situated the stranger upon since getting him here 3 days ago.- was that he'd been stretched thinner than ever. Between catching food, working on an amplifier for his radio, still trying to find a new food source now that the 'crab' was thinning out, tending to captain brain dead 'blue hair' of the spaceship crash division, and of bill droning on and on about paranoid ravings in regards to said coma-esc stranger as well as the normal mind game torture…

Well, it all added up to an exhausted, weakening Stanford Pines whom had, as we see, just passed out.

Maybe 3 hours afterward, though, a pair of eyes slowly and groggily opened, and only one of the two men was asleep now.

The newly awakened man hazily watched the vague glows of moss above him, and distantly asked himself if he was high.

Of course after a few minutes, actual brain power started up, as did pain receptors, it seemed. Dull aches and hot pains faded into place and in response, his eyes narrowed and a frown stretched wide as wheels began to turn in his head.

He meant to move a hand up to his head and run it through his hair, entertaining the idea that maybe he'd gotten into another drunken bar fight and gotten the shit beat out of him, but his hands pulled on a tight restraint and it seemed he couldn't move them any further.

Head throbbing, he lifted it from the cushiony surface underneath him and looked down at his chest- he was still in his stage outfit?- and then to his right to find his arm roped down tight beside his head. He flexed his fingers, curiously observing white bandages from his wrist and all the way to his shoulder, just before reaching his shirt. His single brow rose at one side- if he was still in costume, then where the hell was his vest? It was his favorite and he liked the thing—and he never took off that lab coat unless he was on stage, so he would have put that on too when whatever show had been over.

Then he looked back downward again while lifting a leg to see if his legs were tied- they were- and saw both his coat and vest folded at the foot of the black mass he was on top of (which vaguely reminded him of a beanbag-water bed hybrid). He noted that time, that what he was wearing looked dirtier and ashed, while the other two articles had been cleaned; his pants were rolled up pretty high and various areas of his legs were bandaged. His shirt, on second glance, was also rode up pretty high to expose bandaging around his chest and upper stomach.

Eyes following along the damage, he noticed burns over most of his left half as well as most of the bandages to that side, and questioned the bar fight theory, unless maybe someone had had a flame thrower or some shit. That was just unfair, bringing a flame thrower to a bar fight. His face burned, too, and there was a bit of a constricted feeling around his fore head; he figured that those were cuts and bandages, as well.

As he was looking over his left side he also got a glimpse of the room around him and looked up at that, instead.

Most of the room was a chaos of robotic bits and pieces and parts in piles and disassembled; some sorts of plans he couldn't read from this distance spread out or stacked in piles or stuck to the walls. The desk and book shelves held most of those plans and books and an unnecessary amount of pens. He could see weapons settled in a closet like room further along the back wall and noted them as he formed a slow, vague plan for a chance to escape if he decided he wanted to give it a shot.

What caught his interest almost immediately during the survey of his surroundings was the sleeping man leaned against the massive bean bag. His head tipped forward and eyes closed behind his glasses, the guy had such dark circles around his eyes and such a sickly pale look to him that the only proof the guy was actually alive and asleep and not dead was that there was a rise and fall to his shoulders in a rhythm of breathing and a very very quiet sound of inhaling and exhaling, almost a snore but not quite there.

He noted the book in the other man's lap, alongside another piece of folded clothing underneath it- what looked like a trench coat- and at this distance he could actually read the writing, unlike the other papers, and took a bit to read over the writing, struggling and squinting toward the end as whoever this guy was had struggled to stay awake.

Space ship crash?

That rang a bell.

At the memories of passing by a miserable little planet at full speed, a sudden interference brought about a shut down and… well despite his attempts at evasive action, it seems he was only falling closer and closer to the source of what was shutting down the systems- probably just the planet itself or some shit with its probably weird magnetic force or whatever- he blacked out and, apparently, crashed.

So whoever the hell this guy was who didn't seem capable of finishing a written sentence, who looked almost dead, who apparently was some paranoid freak who couldn't recognize another member of his species with certainty, has saved his life. Or at the very least got him out of the crash site.

Hm.

Well he was certainly in no shape to escape. He wasn't sure where he was- Last he actually knew, he and the rest of his band had jumped into their ships and gotten the fuck out of that rave-turned-massacre when some idiot government he blearily remembered thanks to a booze-addled mind had tried to grab him/them/mostly just him for some prison time. Annoying. He'd been singled off and the dicks'd been chasing him through the forbidden zone of Galaxy 66-69. No way of telling what star system or even what neighborhood zone of stars they were in when he'd crashed, especially not from on a planet. And if his spaceship was totaled, he wouldn't be leaving the planet in a daring escape anytime tonight, so just getting up and taking off would be… pretty stupid.

And he sure as hell wasn't stupid.

Then again, dead-man-walking here was starting to stir.

The blue haired man raised a brow, a guy looking like that probably should sleep for a month straight, he clearly was exhausted beyond exhausted. Then again the steady panic there that had been making him twitch and struggle slightly was probably what was waking up Dr. Paranoid.

As he predicted, the other man suddenly jumped awake like yanked out of sleep by the ears, and sent the notebook, pen and coat in his lap flying.

Deciding it was probably best to just ride this out and not start interacting with some bat-shit guy who'd just woken from a night mare (that'd go _swimmingly_ ) the injured man just rolled his eyes before closing them, and let a fake sleep that he'd perfected throughout high school to avoid talking to annoying people take over.

All was quiet sans ford's heavy breathing, and the mechanical scientist's head turned this way and that, searching through a fogged mind for some signs of eyes watching him or yellow triangles or hell knows what else.

Ford would never know what was worse- the Bill his own nightmares conjured up or the actual Bill that showed up to mess with him. Tonight had been the former.

After a while, when nothing in the room moved at all except for the _sleeping_ person's chest with breathing, ford managed to calm himself down. He kept an eye on the other person's slow moving chest and forcefully slowed his own breathing to match his, until he could maintain those calm breaths on his own. Perhaps, even asleep, this guy was useful.

He spent a couple seconds to pick up the pen and the notebook, putting them back on his desk with the others, before sighing as he walked over to pick up his jacket.

The _sleeping_ stranger watched subtly from slightly open eyes, closed just enough to feign sleep without close inspection.

Ford shook out his coat from its fold, and pulled it on one sleeve at a time before running his hand through his hair. Even awake, this guy looked half dead.

And then said half-dead man was walking toward him and he had to shut his eyes entirely again.

Moments of footsteps ticked by and then silence, and the annoying feeling of being scrutinized, before slow, moving hands pressed to the sides of his head and carefully turned it onto the less damaged side. There was a tongue clicking sound of irritation, and after a few moments, the tight padding was peeled off, and a little bit longer until a new padding was pressed and tapped into place. His head was carefully guided back into an upward facing position to prevent jarring the wound, which must have opened when he was looking around earlier.

He lay still as calloused hands steadily checked over each of his injuries- as he remembered from Dr. Paranoid's journal, this guy was probably checking once again for infection. Shifting bandages, replacing them again, moving him around in the slightest ways to get to each one, never untying a single limb- in fact, he did check all the restraints a total of 4 complete times; Dr Paranoid was, indeed, paranoid.

After checking those restraints, Dr. Paranoid went on to unwrap his arms and check those wounds, which he had seemingly left for last on purpose. Hands slowed their progress and, for a moment, a sudden discomfort filled the typically drunk punk-star as he knew what were on his wrists, injuries of varies ages more of the self inflicted variety. He was a very depressed, tired man. It seemed that's what Dr Paranoid meant by 'seen his scars', then.

As if the paraphrasing passing through the other's head triggered it, Ford pressed a single thumb over them and let out a heavy, determined breath. "Human." He mumbled to himself, firmly adding, "You are human. You're real; you have a story and a life. Not fake, and human."

He only barely restrained himself from some snappy comment or a laugh at this half-dead guy's paranoia. Crazy. Crazy as hell.

Ford let out the breath he was holding after a minute and tiredly bandaged him back up over the arms, head hanging low with his exhaustion.

Stanford hiked his trench coat up and tighter around himself, taking a few steps toward the door. The injured man on the bed peeked through slitted eyes again and watched as Ford opened the door-

Beyond, a heavy, storming rain of what the injured man remembered having been called Acid Rain in the guy's journal, and a well timed flash of lightning.

Despite apparent risk of acid, and lightning, Captain Paranoid only grabbed a tarp from beside the door, and walked out with it over him for protection before closing the door- looking back at his injured charge once- behind him.

The silence after the storm of the outside world was cut off stretched on, and his eyes opened wider again, moderately bored at this point.

You know, an old fantasy of being tied to a bed and getting a bit roughed up had once been a thing. This wasn't how he imagined it.

He was amused by his own thought and looked around the room again.

He could _probably_ just get free of the rope binds if he wanted to, but that'd probably freak Dr. Paranoid out to no end and frankly he may need the guy's help in the near future. So instead, he waited in the calm silence and observed the glowing moss over head as he came up with his 'diplomatic plan' to get Dr Paranoid to untie him willingly.


	5. Introductions

Journal 4

…

When the door had swung open after sitting in the total silence for who knew how long, the sound of it being thrown open merged with the storm and thunder was like a surprise marching band waltzing in.

His bandaged head turned and watched as the tarp-covered creature of a man made its way inside, practically sprinting, and slammed the door hard behind him against a battering wind—carried on its powerful gust, just before the door could lock them into silence again, a predatory roar.

By the sound of it, Dr Paranoid maybe had a good reason to be so paranoid. That sound was somewhere between an Earth Lion and an Nrelopian Gremulovk. He had no clue what it belonged to. Sounded dangerous, though.

He watched plainly as the other person pulled himself free from the tangles of a wind-whipped tarp, taking the time to fold it neatly and set it beside the door again. He observed curiously the man's hands- no, not particularly because of the extra digit on each hand; he'd seen far odder things than a Polydactyl human- he'd seen the Cronenberg dimension, after all. He was more so interested because, A, they were red with burns from acidic material, and B, in his left, he held the handle of a metallic bucket whose contents were unknown.

Dr Paranoid proceeded to set down his bucket and, ignoring what pain he probably felt from his burns, proceeded to lock every single one of the 7 locks on the heavy metal door. Then he sort of stood there for a second, leaned against the wall of the short hall that connected the doorway to the dome itself.

He only moved after a really long moment, sighing deep enough to reach the very core of his soul, before grabbing his bucket and turning around.

The injured man didn't close his eyes, like before, though. Neither did he make any sudden moves. He'd decided he'd wait until Dr Paranoid noticed he was awake for himself.

Which did not take long.

The first thing the other man did was set the bucket, which sloshed with water, down near the desk and shuffle some papers away to make sure nothing got wet. Then, after pausing to stretch once, Dr Paranoid turned and froze as he made to walk toward the bed-thing, only to notice the other's open gaze.

Two pairs of eyes locked and remained fixated, one protected behind a pair of glasses.

Neither one moved, and Ford didn't even seem to breathe. His thoughts were processing too slow for his liking as he urged them to pick up pace and figure out how he was supposed to respond. Perhaps he was overwhelmed with either surprise, or maybe a partly excited flair at the prospect of someone other than a _notebook_ or _bill_ to talk to, or maybe suspicion was joining hand with disbelief and smothering him.

The other man watched these expressions flicker back and forth behind those lensed eyes and found himself cautious to speak, since he didn't have any specific inkling to what Dr Paranoid was so… _paranoid_ about in the first place, and he would really rather not deal with full on psycho if it could be helped.

It seemed the first to get a handle on their tongue was Ford, none the less. "How long have you been awake?" his tone implied all of his suspicion and perhaps some of the surprise and, maybe, just a _little_ bit of excitement.

In response, the other man only shrugged once slowly. He was watching back with mirrored suspicion, none of the rest evident in his movement or face.

So they stared at each other a bit longer, and both counted seconds passing like clocks.

After a while, it was again Stanford who spoke first. "…What are you called?"

The injured man's single brow arched questionably at the other's awkward tone. "Really? You think _names_ are the first thing to be considered right- right now?" Seriously. There were a lot of better questions to be asked first. He'd at least expected an 'are you human' to come first, or something, since Dr Paranoid _was_ freaking paranoid.

Ford's guard only rose in response, eyes focusing. The injured man watched them flicker for only a millisecond to his arms, where they were tied. The thought occurred to him, that perhaps Dr Paranoid was searching for minuscule things to prove humanity within him. He could practically hear the man across the room's thoughts, mentally reminding himself that those scars meant he had some sort of life.

So with a vaguely annoyed sigh, he offered his name. "I'm R-Rick Sanchez, from Earth, Dimension C-137."

Stanford's suspicion mixed more with curiosity, and Rick recognized a vague surge of hope bubbling up at the word 'earth'.

"Well?" Rick's mildly annoyed tone piped up again.

Ford blinked at him, seemed to remember how to properly converse, and stood straighter. "Right- Ford- Stanford Pines, call me Ford I guess. From…" he was mimicking Rick's introduction (supposedly; his bumbling about his name vs nickname kind of threw it off), but was at a loss about his 'from'. "Just Earth."

"You don't- You can't even remember your-your Dimension?" Rick scoffed, "how _long_ have you been out here?"

Ford's frown stretched. "What? I didn't forget- I wouldn't forget something like- my dimension didn't have an _ID_ , it was just _there_."

"Yeah, sure, sure, wh-what-whatever you say, _ford_." The name was a stretch and Rick squinted as if it tasted bad.

Stanford was not sure if he should be offended by that expression.

He decidedly ignored it, instead squinting at the repetitive stutter.

Stutters could be a brain damage thing, right? There was a guy on Stanley's old wrestling team who got a bad head injury, and he stuttered a lot afterward.

Concern and a vaguely lost expression etched into place, which had Rick once again squinting in further suspicion. "Wh-wh-whats with the face?"

"Nothing." Ford waved him off quickly, instead advanced to the side of the bed and, after a second, crossed his arms. "Just- don't move around a lot. Especially your head."

Gears turn and Rick gets a smug smirk. "The-The stutter's- it's been there a _long_ time, don't worry your pretty little- little head about me, fordy."

"Ford."

"s'what I said."

Ford sighed. "Just don't- just don't move around, kid."

Rick's brow raised. " _kid?_ "

Ford paused. Right. He only _dressed_ like an emo teenager. He was still probably around 30. Just to clarify, "How old are you…?"

Rick produced a sneer of a smirk. "G-Good to know that - That I'm still so pretty I need to be- to be _carded_."

Rick was already proving annoying.

Didn't even answer the question.

Ford sighed, shaking his head. "On to a more important matter—do you know where we are?"

"I-I-I'd say some really bad 70's nuke bunker." With a side eye, he added, "Seems the kind of place you'd- you'd fit well here, _Dr. Paranoid_."

"Kid, if you'd seen the things I'd seen, you'd be paranoid too." Ford muttered, and turned that cautious eye pointedly on Rick, though moved toward that bucket from before, across the room.

Rick only laughed, loud and rough, in response what another person would have been creeped out by. " _Fordy,_ if you'd seen the things _I'd_ seen, you'd learn not to _care_."

" _Ford."_ He corrected sharply. "I really don't think not caring would get me off this forsaken planet alive." Ford added.

"Best not to think about it." Rick offered, less than serious, half meaning to be irritating and half referring back to the paranoia. It's always best, not to think about it. Rick's moto, at least. There was a lot better left unthought over, and dwelling on shit never made it better, only worse.

Ford looked away from Rick at last, and up at a glowing dome ceiling. He found the latter of Rick's meaning over the part meant to just be annoying. He tended to follow the same philosophy. "I hear you. Best not to think about it."

It was just best to not think about Bill, his coming nightmares, his failures, his past issues with his brother, his inability. Just… Get on with the work he knew to do- which previously had been the portal, but now, would be the mission of getting home.

Just get to work.

Don't think about it.

Rick looked at Stanford upon note of the man's serious tone, and Ford looked back down from the roof first into his bucket, then over his shoulder at the other ' _human_ '.

Whether they liked one another or not, between that short time span of locked eyes, a silent understanding crossed them. With it, came a short rule; neither of them spoke it, but when they looked away- Rick back at the luminous moss and Ford at his bucket, crawling with crabs- they both silently agreed to it like a contract.

They understood that neither of them wanted to think about it.

Rule of interaction: never ask about it.

Follow that guide… maybe they wouldn't end up killing each other out here.


End file.
